Justin Fox, Columnist

What Does Freedom Mean in China?

Decades of market reforms have created space citizens didn't have before.

July 4, 2016 at 10:05 AM UTC

Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business, economics and other topics involving charts. A former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review, he is author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”

Deng towers over Shenzhen, literally.
Photographer: Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images

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The bronze statue of Deng Xiaoping at the Shenzhen Museum is a little larger than life. But unlike the giant, striding Deng who towers over the city from a hill in a nearby park, there’s nothing imposing about it. It depicts the former Chinese leader planting a tree, something he did at a botanical garden in Shenzhen during a famous visit in 1992. The actual shovel and pail he used are in an adjacent display case.

The statue is part of the museum’s permanent exhibit on “Reform and Opening-up History in Shenzhen,” to which I paid a visit during an Independence Day tour of this giant city on the border with Hong Kong. I didn’t go on July 4 -- the museum is closed Mondays, and the people of Shenzhen are all at work -- but I figured July 3 was close enough.